Posted on 05/04/2016 4:29:15 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
Cruz strikes me as intellectually conservative, but in his heart, only cruzervative.
That's sincere - it's not a knock.
I believe Cruz CHOSE conservatism intellectually as his mask, his sword - which is natural for a man who's made up mostly of just intellect - because it's rational - if you want to win a debate, you really can't be a liberal, and that may be all there is of Cruz - an argument - perhaps most of the time well formed. Real conservatives didn't first learn and adopt conservative arguments and debating points. Long before we knew what conservative formal philosophy and dogma was, whenever we met liberalism, we puked, even before we knew what it was called. Learning to argue and debate came later.
Conservatism is visceral - real conservatism is. You're disgusted by the left and love love love liberty because that's what we de facto are - like a lion cub dropped out of his mama on an african plain. Of course you are free. That doesn't mean you don't have to fight to keep it, or that you might lose your physical freedom. But you never believe you are anything but free, and anyone who threatens that ... you know in your heart you will kill them if necessary, if it comes to that, without a shred of guilt or hesitation.
But intellectual conservatism and liberty is merely an argument. It's all NR ever was ... a cult backed up by decent logic ... and see what happened to them?
Conservatism was only a means to power and being in the club
What proof is there that Cruz is any different? That he actually LOVES anything? To be conservative, you FIRST have to have a heart, THEN it has to incline strongly in a natural direction - and you have to realize that's who you are before you are abused and manipulated into being something else.
Cruz I think only loves the debate, and he loves it because it's his path to power ... for Cruz, it's just a winning formula. That's what I get when I watch him and listen to him.
Call me nasty all you want - many of you who already have. This has been my visceral reaction to Cruz from the first time I saw him speak. At first I thought him just awkward and overly rehearsed. But I've yet to see a breathing human being - I see only an intellect in service of ego - and as soon as that winning formula fails, he'll move to the next thing that will serve his starving ego.
This is consistent and common, though certainly not a guarantee, for kids who grew up in chaotic, mentally ill and dysfunctional alcoholic style families. A few, if they escape the mental illness genes that are present in probably 80% of these families and either totally escape or get caught and then escape the booze/drugs ... are left untouched and even strengthened by the experience. Ted shows signs of mere overachievement and over intellectualization as a defense against a total lack of normal human psychological nutrition.
Can't prove it - but sense it enough to say -> can't put him in serious power so long as there's even a 5% chance this is accurate or near accurate.
I agree!!!
Yes, they have problems, but I would personally prefer Chris Cristie or Rudy Giuliani for Attorney General—and they certainly would deserve it more from Trump. I may not like all that they stand for but I think they’d be good in that position overall. Rudy in particular would be tough-as-nails on crime. Trump is the one that will set the agenda for the administration, and he is taking a very hard line on the Second Amendment (see his policy paper on his website).
At any rate, I don’t think Cruz would accept a role in the Trump administration anyway, although I do suspect that he would accept a SCOTUS seat should Trump win. I used to actually want Cruz for SCOTUS (or VP), but after watching him closely, I would be afraid that he would spend every dissent (or even concurrence) radically misrepresenting his colleagues’ positions and fighting straw man arguments, thus alienating him severely from the people he may be working with for life and pushing them away from his legal stances. Why not just stay in the Senate and try to make a name for himself there? He was only there for two years before he started to run for President. We have yet to see what he can really do as a lawmaker. Since he is aggressive, dogged, and sharp, I might consider U.S. Solicitor General as a good position for him, but he wouldn’t accept that one either I’m sure.
On a different note, I hope Trump announces that Carson will be his Surgeon General or Secretary of Health and Human Services. I get the feeling that Carson actually wants to be Secretary of Education (even though that’s one that Trump has said he wants to scale down—maybe Carson can oversee the cutbacks and decentralization). I like the idea of him announcing some of his team early on.
Agreed. Won’t ever happen. Sessions is the only one I can think of I would trust and I’d rather him be on the Supreme Court.
Totally true, but with no judicial experience, give him a few years to become a respected household name before forcing the nomination process.
There are plenty of very respected conservative federal appeals or state supreme court that can keep the seat warm for home for a few years
“I trust Carson to vet character and Trump to match talents to job.”
I agree but will take it a step further. Carson can float all sorts of trial balloons and if they float, good. If not, Trump can always say “Oh, that’s just Ben thinking out loud”. Brilliant. :)
Christie for AG. He’s tougher than Cruz, who is malleable and wishy-washy.
For what he did to Carson in Iowa, and for standing against free speech in Chicago, and for linking Trump with the KKK, and about 25 other things, I want his next job to entail the words, “Do you want fries with that?”
“with how Cruz just compromised himself or allowed others to persuade him to compromise himself, I hope he gets no where near SCourt .... You don’t treat people like he has and then be rewarded.”
THANK YOU! His character, or lack thereof, makes him completely ineligible for SCOTUS.
“No way should Cruz be anywhere near Donald.”
Really. Knives in the back can be so painful. I wouldn’t trust Cruz within a mile of Trump.
No way Cruz wants to be anywhere near Donald, so you can relax and breathe easy.
“Cruz for Press Secretary.”
LOL!! That is so funny. Could you imagine THAT VOICE — nasal and whiny — in front of a mic every day?
It could serve one good purposes, i.e., no MSM at press conferences any more. There’s only so much torture a person can handle in any given hour.
The point of a cabinet appointment is often to put the yoke on an adversary and have them in your service instead of out on the loose and plotting freely against you. Or, as LBJ once put it, “I would rather have the S.O.B. inside my tent pissing out than outside pissing in.”
And knowing that why would Cruz want to enter into such a situation?
Not so sure about that.....Cruz will do anything to get power.
That’s true. Maybe Cruz as AG. Less power than SCOTUS, and doing the President’s bidding. Still... Cruz... Nasty stuff.
To position himself to become President after Trump.
In politics, it is often necessary to work with adversaries and even to reconcile with them. Indeed, old adversaries often prove to be more worthy of trust than new allies.
That’s a horrible ad for Christie, how could anyone support a person who would run something like that.
Who was the last cabinet officer to be elected to the White House? Prior to Bush senior the last sitting vice-president to be elected to the White House? I agree that Cruz still wants to be president. Serving a Trump administration for 8 years is not a path to that.
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